Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Hockey Fight in Canada: Toronto Mike'd #393

Episode Date: November 2, 2018

Mike chats with the Globe and Mail's David Shoalts about his new book Hockey Fight in Canada.

Welcome to episode 393 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Paytm Canada, Census Design and Build, and our newest sponsors, Pal pasta and fast time jewelry and repair i'm mike from toronto mike.com and joining me is the globe and males david schultz welcome back schultzy good day and i'm okay to call you Schultzy? I've never done that before. I gave up that fight a long, long, long time ago. Listen, I haven't talked to you

since the second Toronto Mic'd listener experience at Great Lakes Brewery. So let me now take the opportunity to thank you so much for performing a stand-up routine that made me laugh often and very hard, and you can hear it in the recording. Well, thank you. Thank you. The only drawback to performing outside, I noticed, since that was the first time I did it, was that even though you are getting laughs, they tend to just sort of

float off into the ether. Oh, that's true. And so when you watch it later, you kind of think, this guy's not doing so well. It's true. It's probably, that's probably why comics prefer like a small room, because then the laughter kind of bounces off the walls and stays in there. But I will tell you, Kevin McGrann, so is it you or Gare Joyce who brought Kevin out for the event?

It was probably Gare, because I don't remember talking to Kevin about it. But so what was nice is that, because I didn't even think of this, because I had a lot of other things I was thinking about, but Kevin McGrann sat beside me in the front and recorded the entire set. Yes, that was very nice of him.

And I was at Absolute Comedy a few weeks ago, and Kevin showed up. Kevin is very supportive in that way. He's the one guy I can count on when I have a big show that he'll come. He's the one guy I can count on when I have a big show that he'll come. And he was kind enough to tape that appearance for me on my phone, I might add. And when you watched it later, you wouldn't have known he was just holding it in his hand.

Oh, it's like a tripod. It's a stable. I don't think I gave him a tripod. Well, I mean, it was nice because I was enjoying it in real time, not realizing it was being recorded. But as I listened back to Kevin McGran's recording of you and Gare, but when I listened back to your set, I could hear this one particular voice that was laughing at all the right spots. And I realized, oh, that's me because I was sitting right beside Kevin.

Well, that's just it. Yeah. The people sitting next to the phone. We weren't exactly making this a major professional production. But I did create, I grabbed the audio from that video and I put you and Gare Joyce's stand-ups, I put them in an episode of Toronto Mic'd, which was basically your stand-up, Gare Joyce's stand-up,

and then the speech I gave later in the evening, just in case people wanted to hear what they missed. And I'm telling you, so I listened to it again, and I thought you were very funny. Is that surprising to you? Well, I guess, yeah, some people have told me I'm funny. Some people have said the opposite. But, well, I will say this.

If you watch the video that Kevin shot at Absolute Comedy, you will see the difference between an indoor sort of a club setting, which is pretty closed in and intimate and the outdoors and, uh, you know, the difference in, in how you can hear the laughter. Well, good on you for the, for, uh, working in some Ann Romer jokes and, uh, byway jokes. So you, I could see that you put some, uh, prep, you made it Toronto Mike specific.

My first attempt at writing in a while. That's, that's what I've got to do now, which I'm so determinedly lazy that I haven't started yet outside of a couple of half-assed premises. But yeah, I got to get going on that. So thank you for doing that. That was great.

And people enjoyed seeing you there. I want to just tell everybody, this is your one, two, three, this is your fourth appearance on Toronto Mic'd, and I'll very quickly just let people know. Oh, God. That's when I'll become as ever-present and annoying as Hebsey. On that note, episode 150, and I always remember the number,

what a round number, 150. You came on for the first time, and the description goes like this. Mike chats of Globe and Mail writer David Schultz about Canada's sports media, particularly primetime sports with Bob McCowan. Dean Blundell, remember him? Dean Blundell? Oh, God, yeah. Versus Mike Richards, who

yesterday asked me, can I come on your show to make a big announcement? And I'm like, okay. So he's going to be on next, he's got a big announcement to make on this program next Wednesday. A big announcement. Yeah, well, his words, right? Well, didn't I see something?

I thought I saw something about that on Twitter last night, I think, or the day before. And I was a little confused whether he was making the big announcement. Because somebody also mentioned TSN 1050 has got a big announcement around the same time i'm quite sure the two aren't connected i would imagine that now see i have i mean of course uh like i have uh i'm speculative id he hasn't told me what the announcement is mike richards so this is all very speculative but he did drop a hint on twitter that he'd be you could hear him in the car live in mornings well he's got a new deal then with somebody. But then I'm thinking, okay, well, if this is what I thought, and this is how much I

think of myself. If he's making the announcement on Toronto Mic'd, it's not a big company, right? Like, you know, so the state... Well, don't sell yourself short. I don't know. You know, he obviously wants people in the industry to hear it. So why not come on here? Well, that's a good point.

Everybody in the industry listens. But I mean why not come on here? Well, that's a good point. Everybody in the industry listens. But I mean, I'm as excited as all the listeners. And I like the fact that I don't know what it is because I get to react in real time. And I have a feeling like if it's an underwhelming announcement that he built up or whatever, I'll have trouble like faking it. You know what I mean? So like, I'll be like, oh, and? And what else?

And then, oh, that's the announcement. And I'll be like, oh, it's like when you get that Christmas gift or whatever, birthday gift, and you don't really want it. And you kind of have to put on that face like, oh, thanks so much. It's great. We'll see how it goes. But, okay, so I digress. What did I mention? Okay.

Also, you, okay, perceived bias and Rogers hockey. So you were already talking about Rogers hockey, obviously, on episode 150. But then Mark Hebbshire crashes the party to tell the inside story of what happened to Steve Sage. He just left, by the way. You missed him by 15 minutes. Oh, yes. And today I wasn't thinking it was a particularly good day.

Well, things have gotten better all of a sudden. Oh, I don't like it when my friends make fun of each other. But I will say that that was interesting to hear hebsey's uh reaction to just being fired by chch like it just happened and he wanted to come in so that was your first appearance but you came back for episode 182 uh so go to 182 for your second appearance and we really just talked about the Rogers hockey, how that was progressing, the Rogers hockey deal, which is an interesting topic because we're going to revisit that today because I'm holding up for no cameras. There's no cameras in the room,

yet I'm still holding up my copy of Hockey Fight in Canada, which we'll talk about soon. You came back for episode 284 and you kicked out the jams and it was a great education. Uh, you know your stuff. And I, I loved that episode because I learned a great deal about Howlin' Wolf and all these different cats. And it was really good. Gosh, this has turned into an episode of This Is Your Life, isn't it?

This Is Your Life Toronto. By the way, the last episodes, that was it. So those are the three, uh, Schultz episodes to catch up. The very last episode I recorded featured another Globe and Mail writer, Rachel Brady. By any chance, did you hear that episode? I am a little behind in my Toronto Mike episodes. I was very aware that Rachel Brady and Christina Rutherford were on. Yes.

And I haven't got there yet. And I also, I'm sorry to admit, haven't listened to the Scott Moore episode either. Oh, that was a question later on. Yeah. I'm stuck in my car. I started listening to an audio book, a biography of Jerry Lee Lewis. And I've got about an hour and a half to go on that before I can get to you.

So Scott Moore and I got bumped for the killer, which is appropriate. I will say, a very interesting life. Oh, yeah. I heard a podcast once just touching on some of the parts of his life, and I was thinking, holy smokes, this is crazy. But, okay, well, I'm very eager is crazy. I thought I had reached a stage in my life where I really don't give a shit

anymore. This guy takes it to a whole new level. Oh man. So that's worth you got to do another 90 minutes there. And then I will be very obviously I'll be naturally interested in what you thought of the Scott Moore episode. I was going to talk about it later before we dove into your book.

You should have warned me. I would have listened to it. I thought you would naturally go to that, like cherry pick that, because obviously your book just came out on a subject that we did discuss. It's been a busy time. Okay. And that's why you haven't had time to get to write more comedy for 2019. Okay.

You see, I haven't even done that yet. This is a big day. David Schultz. I'm so glad you're here. Like it's a monster day for this program. And of course you appear at Toronto Mike listener experience events. So I know you're a supporter of this program. So I'm kind of glad this is happening while you're here,

but I'm unveiling two new sponsors and they're both family run, sorry,-run businesses, and they're really worthy of everyone's support. And heck, they're supporting Toronto Mike. So right away, you know these are great, great, great businesses. But you see in front of you a red box. Okay. I see this. It's heavy. Feel that.

It's very heavy, yes. That's a Palma's Pasta. Palma Pasta is the name of the chain of Mississauga and Oakville restaurants, but they have a new location called Palma's Kitchen that just opened up. In fact, Palma's Kitchen is really close to Mavis and Burnhamthorpe on Semantic Court, so to find the address, go to palmapasta.com. But they've given you a lasagna. That's for you to take home and enjoy.

Oh, marvelous. Well, thank you very much. I'm a big Italian food guy. And yes, also a big lasagna guy. Will this keep for a week? It's frozen. Is it? Oh, okay.

I just took it out of the freezer. The reason I ask is my wife has been away visiting family, and she'll be home in a week, and maybe I could greet her with this and pretend I made it. Well, the trick is I know because I've made a few Palma pasta lasagnas in my day that you've got to get it out of the fridge. You've got to get it out of the freezer and you got to get it out of the freezer and into the fridge 24 hours before you make this thing.

Oh, is that right? So just the day before you're going to make this thing, get it out of the freezer and put it in the fridge. Well, it certainly has a great deal of heft to it, which is very promising.

Oh, no. Way before they were a sponsor, I was a massive... I actually had Palm and Pasta cater my wedding that's how much i like their italian food like legit discovered them when i used to work in the neighborhood this is going way back but discovered their hot table and it was my go-to place for lunch and they're amazing so welcome to the show palm of pasta again they have four locations in

mississauga and oakville and uh but any in? You know what? Not that I've noticed yet. I'll find out if there's expansion plans. Get that into Bolton. Hey, there's a huge Italian population in Bolton slash Caledon, so you tell them to get up there. I will. We could use a good Italian restaurant.

And check out Palma's Kitchen if you're in the Mavis and Burnhamthorpe area. It's worth the drive even if you're not from that neck of the woods. But if you want hot and fresh food and a retail store with seating and coffee and everything, you want to go to Palma's Kitchen. So thank you, Palma Pasta. Welcome to the Toronto Mike family. It's just really great to have a new sponsor.

And there's another one. In fact, I'm trying to get cute with how I do this. So I even put this together. So bear with me here. David, remember the time. On this day in 1978, Wayne Gretzky is sold to the Edmonton Oilers after eight games of the Indianapolis Racers of the WHA. By the way, he scored six points in those eight games. And of course, in that season, 1978, he'd go on to score 104 points in 72 games,

if you combine the two teams. And he was named the WHA Rookie of the Year. So 1978 on this day is when he was sold to the Oilers. Legend has it there was a backgammon game involved between Nelson Scalbainia and Peter Pocklington, right? I seem to remember something about that. I wouldn't surprise me, first of all, but that's a very interesting detail. Yeah, I'm doing this off the top of my head.

It seems to me that on a trip somewhere, Pocklington beat Scalbania at Backgammon. Backgammon was a big fat at the time and demanded or was offered Wayne Gretzky to settle the bet, whatever it was. Now, mind you, Albania was hurting financially at the time. I mean, he always was close to the edge everywhere. I happened to be working in Calgary when he showed up in Calgary with the Flames and literally flamed out as an owner within a year or two. And he also brought the old North American Soccer League. He brought a team up to Calgary. I think they came from Memphis, but I can't remember.

They were around for a few years too, and then it all went away. So remember the time. It's a new segment. I'm going to do it every episode. We're all on this day in history, basically. So that was for November 2nd, 1978, the Gretzky sold to the Oilers. Remember the time is brought to you by Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair.

They've been doing quality watch and jewelry repairs for over 30 years. David, do you remember when you would go to a Sears and they would have a watch repair in the Sears? Well, yeah. Every department store had a watch counter. Sure. So these guys were the watch repair for Sears. They had to be branded Sears watch repair.

But then Sears, as you know, went bankrupt in this country. And suddenly, you know, with over 30 years experience, Fastime had to sort of, I want to say, almost had to start from scratch in terms of branding and getting their own shop. So they've opened up a bunch of locations in the GTA. If you go to FastimeWatchRepair.com, you can find out a location closest to you. Here's what's cool. You can get a watch battery replacement while you wait. But if you mention Toronto Mic'd at any Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair location, you get 15% off any regular priced watch battery installation.

So apparently they never do this. But if you just mention that you heard about them on Toronto Mic, you get 15% off. So go to FastTimeWatchrepair.com for a location near you. And a gentleman there named Milan actually has a great opening question for you. So let's hear from Milan. Hey Toronto Mike, this is Milan from Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. Hello David, I really enjoyed your stand-up comedy performance at the Toronto Mike listener experience a few weeks ago. My question is, working with and knowing Bob McCowan for so many years, combined with the changing landscape of sports media ownership

that have muzzled Real Talk, do you feel we will ever see a Bob McCowan type of voice on our airwaves again? Thanks a lot, Toronto Mike. I'm going to say yes, maybe not as many. But the danger of saying that is that Bob was, I shouldn't say, why did I say what? Bob is a very unique voice. And so you could almost say that at any time. I mean, when Bob came along in the late 70s, what made him well-known so quickly is that he was different than everybody else.

He was the obnoxious radio guy. The problem now is that talk radio, especially in sports, has kind of devolved in a lot of ways, particularly in the U.S., not so much up here, but just a lot, you know, a scream fest. And so I think there will always be room for a unique voice, just not as much room as there used to be.

There's another question. Surprisingly enough, whenever somebody like yourself comes on or when Mike Zeisberger was here, anybody who's ever been on like a primetime sports roundtable, I get hit with these PTS questions. Well, yeah, yeah. No, that's the most common question. And I still get it anywhere I go. It amazes me how many people must look at a TV in the supper hour because

they still think I'm on that show. That's right. And I haven't been on Bob's show in years. And the chances of me ever going on his show again, I mean, are infinitesimal. I was going to ask, because I did hear, you haven't heard the Scott Moore episode, but I asked about Damien Cox,

because Cox was on Primetime Sports, and then he wasn't. And I just asked Scott what happened, and he alluded to something, maybe they weren't getting along or something, Damien Cox and Bob McCowan. I know that's shocking. Damien not getting along with somebody?

Or Bob? Or at all. Color me shocked. I was going to say. But this aired only a few weeks ago with Scott Moore. And then apparently last week, or maybe it was this week because it's Friday now, maybe it was this week, where Damien Cox appeared on Primetime Sports. And I got a bunch of people sending me emails and messages to say,

hey, Cox is on Primetime Sports right now. So, I mean, maybe we will one day hear David Schultz on Primetime Sports. No, I doubt it. I doubt it. Bob, I don't think Bob is happy with me still after some stuff I wrote a few years ago. But, hey, I'm not, you know, yeah, why wouldn't Damien go on there? I mean, there's lots of people I can take in small doses.

Jason's a listener, and he writes, excluding himself, so take yourself out of this equation, who would be on the Dream Team Primetime Sports Friday Roundtable? He goes on to say that he would pick Stephen Brunt, Michael Grange, and Dave Perkins. Would he give runner-ups to Damien Cox, Richard Deitch, and Elliot Friedman? He says that Cox and Deitch would be fascinating together.

Do you have a PT? Who do you think? Well, if I'm not on it, it's not a dream team. I'm sorry. Hey, Isaiah Thomas wasn't on the dream team either. Well, there's lots of dream Teams he could make, that guy. I'll tell you. That's right.

I would say, well, it would be Brunton McCown as the host. Elliot Friedman and I'm going to say either Richard Deitch or Dave Perkins. Maybe I've heard Perkins a lot more than I've heard Richard. So maybe on that basis, we'll slide Perky in just ahead of him. Cool, cool. That was a good question. I like that. What was your role in Every Spring a Parade Down Bay Street?

And what exactly was slash is that? Okay, it started out as a sort of novella written by Gare Joyce, my pal, who is a sports writer over at Sportsnet. And it morphed into a sort of pretend, like he wrote it as a radio play to be delivered in the style in the old days that radio plays were delivered, which basically you sat on a stage in a studio with a live audience and just read into the microphone. And as Gare said in introducing it when we did it, he said, a novella is almost a novel, and this is almost a play.

And so it was a parody. It is a parody of both the Leafs and the old-time sports scene in Toronto that people of a certain age could remember when you had shows like, well, the whole show itself is a parody of the old, and the name of the show has gone right out of my head. Not Sports Beat or Sports, oh, Johnny Esau,

who is a character in the play. He was the host, I believe. I think Pat Marsden might have been the later host, where basically a bunch of sports writers sit around and talk about the sports issues of the day. I think it's Sports Beat. Isn't it Sports Beat? Sports Beat rings a bell for me. And added to the parody is Gare has cast this in a world

where the Leafs actually never turned into the greatest example of futility after winning the 67 Cup. Gare has them perhaps winning the Cup every year, or perhaps that's just part of the fevered imagination of the main character, a guy named Red York, who's sort of a composite of the blowhard, egotistical old sports writers. And that was my role.

And as I always like to say, that was a real stretch as an actor for me. And I mean, Kevin McGrann, speaking of The Devil, he was on recently and he had a role too? Was he Milt Donnell? Kevin played Milt Donnell. Jeff Samet, who some people may

know from The Fan. He's now at SiriusXM. He has a show. He played Johnny Esau. And then we had, Hebsey made a sort of cameo appearance as my lawyer. I think he's following you around. Yeah, I know. Oh, my own stalker. And then we had a couple of other friends from the comedy community play roles

as well Megan, I hope I'm getting your last name right, Megan Fallenbach who is a sort of a voice actor and a comedian she played my wife I saw her, I once

I think it was at the Drake it was like a and a comedian. She played my wife. Okay, I saw her. Did a great job. I once went, I think it was at the Drake, I think they were, it was like a premiere of a movie, and she and another woman wrote and starred in this movie. It was about,

I remember it was about having babies or something. Yeah, Megan's done a lot of interesting stuff. Yeah, I remember seeing her there. She was good. She was good. She was good. Sean O'Rourke wants an update on the Fantasy Hockey League thus far. And then he says, I think he's a part of the one with Zeisberger and LeBrun.

The Toronto Media Hacks hockey pool. Yeah, yeah. How are you doing? Not great, even though I've managed to come out of last place up to about somewhere around 6 out of 12. This is a pool that's heavily weighted towards goaltenders and defensemen. And every year, I think I have a good set of both, and every year they let me down. And this is going on now because my goaltending is Matt freaking Murray and Freddie Anderson.

Freddie's actually playing fairly well, but the louts in front of him aren't doing anything. Right. And so, yeah. And I also have Victor Hedman sitting on the sidelines. He got a bop on the head. Oh, no. Anyway, there's nothing more boring, I think,

than people going on about their fantasy teams, even though it's a great interest to the person talking. You can blame Sean for that. Before we proceed, so I've given you, Thomas Posta gave you. I just, I'm sorry to interrupt. I just happened to think of what should have

been my greatest moment as a fantasy owner. Because in this league, the Toronto Media Hacks, we all have a certain amount of access to GMs and coaches for a little inside information. Some more than others. So you know when Pierre Lebrun comes calling, you do not trade with him because he's got, somebody's told him something.

And one year, this goes back to when Paul Maurice was coaching the Leafs. And one year I was trying to trade a stiff to Lance Hornby at the Toronto Sun. I believe it was Tuomo Rutu. And Lance had a mild interest and I was trying to sell him as a great power play player and I forget what Lance was willing to give me but it was something I wanted. So shortly before

Paul Maurice and I knew Maurice had coached Rutu in Carolina so I grabbed Maurice before his daily media scrum and said look I need you to do me a favor. I'm going to ask you a question about the power play near the end of your scrum, and I want you to talk about Ruto. Just drop it in there that he's the greatest power play player you've ever coached. And so this all worked. I asked the question, but unfortunately,

Maurice couldn't keep a straight face and started laughing. And Lance caught on and called off the deal. But that's funny. It's like insider trading going on here. Holy smokes here. We're going to have a scandal on our hands. But I now want to ask you about a tweet you sent out

because we recently had the municipal elections. Yes. And you might recall John Tory was reelected. I know you're a Bolton guy, but here in Toronto, Tory won. I don't know. Did he have a new mayor, Bolton, or it's the same guy for 100 years? No, it was greatly disappointing in Caledon. They elected the same old group, which means more trucks, more development.

They've made a hash out of the town, and they're going to continue to do so. It's tough. In municipal politics, it's very difficult to unseat a incumbent. Yes, because nobody votes. I think we had a 32% turnout in Bolton somewhere around there, which looks to me about average. And everybody just voted for the same old crew.

Oh, well, that's, well, we voted for the same old crew too, more or less. And on election night, you did a tweet. I'm going to read it. It said, when news people actually have to work a little bit, write and edit to deadline, then management buys them all pizza. Everyone stands around patting themselves on the back and calling each other warriors for doing what the sports people do every frigging night.

So that was your tweet, which I had a good chuckle at, and I thought it was funny because I know you're an aspiring stand-up comic, and I know you a little bit, and I thought it was pretty clever. But it didn't have anything to do with comedy, really. Yeah, well, okay, that's what I was going to try to find out. I got to tell you, it got unbelievable reaction. I knew it would get some reaction, mostly from the news side types who'd get up on their high horse and carry on. But the last time I looked, which was over a week ago, it had 850,000 impressions, according to Twitter analytics, which i've never come close to

so i think my average is somewhere between three and five thousand well yeah it struck a nerve with sports people because all i did was voice a frustration we've had ever since we've been in the business i can't tell you how many times over the years you're sitting in the office on an election night and all those news side guys or people are running around like they're doing the lord's work and carrying on and you know it wouldn't be so bad if they weren't you know a lot of them weren't so bloody condescending to sports right like oh you guys in the toy the toy department what do you know and so basically the reaction was from sports people yeah amen right on and a lot of news site people too, actually.

Well, I saw some of the mentions or comments following your tweet there, which I thought you were making a joke, is what I thought. It was funny. I thought it was funny. I'll tell you what. It's nothing a sports person hasn't said

a thousand times over the years. And it was sort of partly a joke and partly serious i knew it would strike a chord with all this the sport anybody who'd been in sports for more than a year uh would it would strike a chord with them but i you know i wouldn't know it's like everything you put on twitter wasn't entirely serious although of course there's you know no no shortage of people on twitter who just take it 100% serious. Well, that's what I noticed was some responses were taken straight up. Including a couple of clowns over at the National Post.

And one of whom said, oh, well, in 10 years, the Globe and Mail is not going to employ a single sports writer. Well, first of all, that's irrelevant to me because within two years I'll be retired. Right. But this guy, that's pretty rich coming from post media, who I'll bet within five years won't employ anybody. So, you know. Yeah, I think the last guy to turn off the lights over there is going to be Steve Simmons. That's my guess. Oh, by the way, the Scott Moore episode, I brought up the name Steve Simmons, and it made for a very interesting reaction. And I thought Scott was going to explode for a moment. Oh, is that right?

So he's, I've been displaced. No, actually, I'm kidding. Scott and I get along fairly well right now. Well, he said he liked the way that he was portrayed in your book. Well, he liked the book, yeah. But I must say, he was very helpful when I did the book. I mean, he spoke at length with me at a breakfast meeting, and a lot of the people like Keith Pelley and John Collins in particular and Scott spoke on the record. There were some things that other people told me that weren't, when I say on the record,

I mean they didn't want their name attached to the quotes because they have ongoing business relationships or personal relationships for things like that. But yeah, I mean, Scott was very helpful in the book. Yeah. And we're going to, we're going to talk immense, I'm going to spend a lot of time on this book very, very shortly, but I started this way. I remember then you had the fantasy sports update and we had to get that in,

but you got the palm of pasta lasagna in front of you, but of course, you're not leaving here without a fresh six-pack of Great Lakes beer. I'm all choked up. I'm so happy to be giving out gifts. I really feel like

this is some supreme value now that you get the food and the drink. So of course, you were at the Second Toronto Mike Listener Experience and that was at

Great Lakes Brewery. So I've seen you on the premises there. But as you know at the Second Toronto Mike Listener Experience, and that was at Great Lakes Brewery. So I've seen you on the premises there. But as you know, the weather is not patio-friendly right now, but they have some room inside, of course. But that's a great place to go to pick up your beer at the retail store on Queen Elizabeth Boulevard, not too far from Royal York and Queensway. But please enjoy the Great Lakes beer. I certainly will. And I can't tell you how happy I am to see their Pilsner is in here.

What is it called? Over My Dad Body Pilsner. Over My Dad Body. As someone who has a dad body, I'm a big Pilsner guy. And it always drove me a little crazy. You could never... Like my local LCBO carries Great Lakes breweries,

but they never ever carry the Pilsner or the Blonde Lager, which I see is also there. I don't think any LCBOs carry the Blonde Lager. Why is that? I mean, I've complained a few times about, there's another Pilsner I like called, it's now called Pickup 26 Pilsner, and it's put out by a company called Thornberry.

But it was originally King Pilsner. It was made by King Brewery, which was in Nobleton, Ontario, and then was taken over by this other brewery. And the beer store in Bolton and the liquor store both stopped carrying it, but they carry other beers by the same company. And when I asked the manager, why is this, that you just sort of get a shrug. Well, that's just what we do. Yeah, the blonde lager, you got to go to the retail store to get it.

Very popular beer too, but it's only $2. I think that's a $2.30 a can beer. So it's tremendous value. But I think what you do is you tie in your visits. Like if you're coming here, then on your way back to Bolton, you stop off at Great Lakes and you stock up. I mean, I've got to come and be on this show more?

Yeah, I'm telling you. If you throw me a six-pack and a lasagna every time, hey, I'm your guy. I'm just adding up now what the retail cost of this is. And I think this is, you might have scored $100 in gifts here. Oh my goodness. This is pretty tremendous. Far beyond anything I've ever made in comedy.

Well, that is probably true. I do have a question from Brian Gerstein for you, and Brian... That guy's full of questions. He's got a great jingle, too, so let's hear from Brian.

PropertyInThethe6.com Hi, Dave. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mites. You can call or text me at 416-873-0292 if you are planning to buy and or sell in the next six months for a free professional home evaluation. Dave, Sportsnet recently had their 20th anniversary and went on and on about how they have overtaken TSN as the number one sports station, of course attributed to the $5.232

billion 12-year hockey package. Looking ahead, what happens in the 2026-27 season? If you have to fathom an educated guess, having written Hockey Fight in Canada, the big media face-off over the NHL, I can think of nobody better than you to answer this question. Oh my. Well, first I've got another question. Well, you can answer this question. Is that Brian singing the jingle? No. It isn't. That is actually, this is the most fun fact.

I'm glad you asked this. It's somebody who's sort of disguising his voice or playing around with his voice. That's all. It is local rapper producer Ill Vibe, the same gentleman who sings or raps the Toronto Mike theme song you hear at the beginning of every episode. Ah, I see. It's one of the same gentleman who sings or raps the Toronto Mike theme song you hear at the beginning of every episode.

It's one of the same people. Yeah, isn't that a fun fact? Versatile guy, yeah. Oh, that jingle gets stuck in my head. But I like that you are, and I mean, of course you are, because you wrote the book, but you are now going to forever be the authority when it comes to this NHL deal, Roger's sign.

So you're going to get a lot of crystal ball questions. Quite a millstone to have hanging around your neck. This is a really, really hard one to answer because the business is changing so much. You know, if you just look at it, you'd say, okay, and is it 2026?

I don't even get the year right. Well, you know, you could say there's going to be another brawl between Rogers and Bell Canada over the rights. I mean, that would be the obvious answer because despite losing the national rights, you've got to figure that TSN and CTV, i.e. Bell Canada, would be back to get that programming just because of the ratings and all that.

TV will still mean something in seven or eight years. However, as I noted in the conclusion of the book, there are all kinds of other companies that are jumping in, and these are giants like Google and Amazon are buying up rights and even Twitter. So who knows? That's a great point. One thing I can say is the CBC won't be competing on that level.

They'll be part of it, I suppose, in some fashion. But what that is, who knows in seven or eight years. That's a great unknown because there's just so much change in the industry that you can't make a prediction. Well, just go back eight years ago and think of it. You know, you couldn't imagine some of the things that we now kind of, you know, just the way that the digitization of media as a whole.

Like now you can know some games are on Facebook only. I saw a Blue Jay game that was an exclusive for Facebook. Yeah, and it was NFL. There was NFL games on Twitter. And that sort of stuff just stuns me because, yeah, I'm an old baby boomer. But, you know, to me, you'd watch a game on your phone only if you're stuck somewhere and can't get in front of a big screen.

And so why would you want to watch a game on Twitter regularly? It just baffles me. Well, you would watch it. If you were going to watch on Twitter, you would use something like, I use Chromecast, which is a Google product, but something that puts it on the big screen. Yeah, and of course, that would require technical knowledge. It's way beyond me. But in eight years, even guys like you are going to understand

what Apple TV and Chromecast and these things. Well, I know a little bit about Apple TV and stuff like that. Just enough to be dangerous. No, I mean, like watching on your phone, that's when you're stuck at your nephew's wedding. I'm with you. I think that's exactly what it's for,

when you're stuck at a wedding and you want to watch the Leaf game which has happened to everyone at one point or another Dale has a nice little note he sent he said tell him and that's you David tell him I was happy to see him at Forster's Forster's in Bolton a few weeks ago a great conversation please ask him how the book is doing as I've read part of it and it's a great synopsis about hockey fight in Canada. And he asks if you're still playing senior men's hockey. Barely.

Just barely. Yeah, Dale's a good Bolton guy. I remember meeting Dale and we've conversed a bit on email over the years. I honestly don't know how the book is doing sales-wise because the publisher only owes me a statement twice a year. The only thing I do know is that I spent some time as the number one selling hockey book on amazon.ca, but that ended a week or two ago. And so, hey folks, you got to get me back up there. Well, okay. Well, I don't know much about writing books in the industry,

but I get told things by people like Stephen Brunt, et cetera. But it sounds like all the books in Canada get sold for Christmas. Like this is like, right? And your book is out now because, and it's still early. Just November just arrived. So people like me haven't really thought about Christmas. Well, that's true. And so that's why we do, you know, like the publishers will do another promotional push through, you know, probably starting in a week or two through the end of November anyway.

But people who listen to this podcast typically like the they like to know how the sausage was made. They like inside baseball, if you will. That audience. And obviously, if you're listening to this voice right now, you have some level of interest in David Schultz and the sports media universe that he lives in. And I would say that this would be the ideal book for somebody who is interested in sports media in this country. And there's no bigger story than the Rogers NHL deal and what transpired there.

And I've read the book and I found it fascinating. We're going to talk about it in great detail in a minute. But this would be a great Christmas or holiday gift for anyone who cares about, you know, sports media or hockey in this country. Well, thank you. And that was the idea behind the book is that people can't resist a sort of inside story, even if, you know, the characters aren't household names.

Some of them are, like Ron McLean and George Strombolopoulos and Elliot Crampon and that crowd. Sure. But the main players were the, you know, the suits and all the things they got up to while this property was being kicked around. And, you know, when I was covering it at the time for the Globe and Mail,

I was sort of the sports media guy. I knew it would probably make a good book, but I also knew from experience how much work a book was. I have to admit, I didn't go around pushing the idea. So it didn't really originate with me. But I mentioned this is the fourth time you've been on Toronto Mic'd. But the second time, we actually pretty much just talked about what was going on with the Rogers deal for hockey.

Did you have anything in your mind at that point that you might write a book on this? Probably. How long ago was that? I should know this, but it was probably, I don't know, except it was right after the snow. I do know it was shortly after they removed Strombo and people like Glenn Healy, I guess, and David Cox. Oh, well, maybe at that time, yeah. The book hadn't come up at that point, yeah. I was just curious because at least a couple years ago when the book came up. Gotcha, gotcha. Because I have to admit, I delayed it a couple of times,

much to the publisher's annoyance, because I went back on the hockey beat and the Leafs got good and started taking up more of my time. Although I've got to admit, and I hope the publisher doesn't listen to this, but I've got to admit I kind of used it as an excuse to get out of some work when I didn't really feel like

doing it. But in the end, it worked out because as a little more time passed, a couple of sources opened up and told me some interesting stuff that made the book better. Well, imagine what Scott would tell you today. I have a feeling like you'd be even looser. Well, it's a funny thing about books. If I were there in my guise as the sports media producer

talking to Scott or Keith Pelley or John Collins, and they knew that whatever they were saying was going to appear the next day in the Globe and Mail, they would be far more circumspect. Whereas a book is a more abstract concept, and it's something that's going to appear off in the future. So I think in that regard, they're a little more willing to share. Oh, for sure.

For whatever reason. All right. We're about to play the song and dive deep into this. But first, I want to thank a couple of, I was going to say sponsors, but actually, I think of them more as like partners. So they're really partners in this Real Talk Toronto Mic experience here. So I want to thank Census Design and Build. They provide architectural design, interior design, and turnkey construction services across the GTA. So to learn more about the possibilities

for your home, call Census Design and Build at 416-931-1422 or go to census design build.ca census is s-e-n-s-u-s by the way and schedule your zoning and cost project feasibility study also paytm have been amazing partners paytm by the way they they're now on the ice surface at uh it's at the canadian tire center wherever the senators play uh so if you have to cover if they ever cough up the coin to send you to ottawa to ice surface at the Canadian Tire Center, wherever the Senators play. So if you have to cover, if they ever cough up the coin to send you to Ottawa to cover a league, dude, you won't travel, right? It's only games in Toronto for regular season?

Yeah, probably in the playoffs we'll travel some, but no, yeah, we were leaders in that regard. We were way ahead of the Toronto Star. Well, the thing is now, because McGran was just here, so I got the Toronto Star update that he's going to get to go to... Were we just in Pittsburgh? They'll send him wherever he can

drive. Right. So he was in Pittsburgh or something. You're right. So it's like Buffalo or Pittsburgh or Detroit or something like that. But okay, so I digress. I'm talking about my friends at Paytm. So this is a way everyone listening right now can get $10. And I've done this and I'm getting all my family members to do it because it's $10 just for installing the

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I'm happy to help. Just write me an email, mike at tronomike.com, and make sure you get that $10. Now, there's a jam I wanted to kick out, even though Bell Media owns this jam. It's the only way I know to start this discussion. Mr. Schultz, your book is Hockey Fight in Canada. And I'm going to start with the obvious here. And tell us what you can. I know you're not going to read the book to us here. And people still need to buy it for a lot of the details. Tell me how CBC, which had Hockey Night in Canada forever,

how did CBC lose the rights to Hockey Night in Canada? Well, they lost it through a combination. Well, the biggest overriding reason is they didn't have the money, which really wasn't the fault of the negotiators. But I think beyond that, it was a combination of stubbornness, naivety, and in a few instances, a little thick-headedness. You know, refusing to accept the idea of a partnership with one of the big players like Rodgers or Bell. And they even turned down, you know, a sort of olive branch from the NHL.

And so, next thing you know, they're out. How many, was it 60 years? How long, do you remember how long did CBC have Hockey Night in Canada? It was 62 years, I believe. Yeah, it ended with the 13-14 season, was it? Or 12-13? Well, the first televised, if you want to go the televised package, it started in 1952. Right, because it was radio only before that.

If you want to include radio, it goes back to about 1935, I think, 35 or 36. In your book, there's a story you tell or share about maybe NHL had some issues with Ron McLean and Don Cherry. Do I have that right? Well, not everybody in the NHL, some, Gary Bettman and John Collins did, and it was mainly the Canadian teams were angry. mainly the Canadian teams were angry. They would get angry at Cherry off and on for things he said, but mainly they were really, really angry with Ron McLean. And that was because Ron was continually taking the players' side on just about every issue, but, you know, in particular on labour issues. And so in those years, I mean, we had, well,

if you start back at 1993 or two or three, they had a strike, a couple of lockouts, or three lockouts, you know, I think the last year of the CBC contract was a lockout year. And so Ron was very, very strongly in support of the player's view on these things. And this would come out most famously in his interviews with Gary Bettman, which would get

quite confrontational. And the, the, the other thing now that I think about, about Cherry, um, the Toronto Maple Leafs were really unhappy with him. And this was during the years when Brian Burke was the general manager and president and Ron Wilson was the head coach. Because Cherry was constantly banging the drum that these guys were really Americans and they weren't interested in Ontario-born players

on the team, which just drove Burke and Wilson insane. And so, yeah, that's how I, there was a meeting, a governor's meeting at the All-Star game the year it was held in Ottawa. So this would have been 2013, I think, February of 2013. And Brian Burke phoned Jeffrey Orridge, who was the head of CBC Sports at the time. He'd been in the job about a year. He was hired in part to,

because he had a relationship with Bettman. Orridge is a New York guy. He was a Harvard-educated lawyer. And he used to work at USA Basketball. And in that capacity, he was a general counsel. He knew Gary Bettman because Gary in those days was number three, I believe, at the NBA. So they worked together on some projects. And so I think, you know, the CBC people believe this to be true that, you know,

Orridge was essentially hired to negotiate that deal. It was coming up. And they also had a bunch of other packages coming up. And so he was hired in large part to do these things. And Orridge replaced Scott Moore, right? Is that right?

Eventually, yeah. I think there was an interim guy in there. Yeah, but Scott, yeah, Scott left to go to Rogers to join his friend Keith Pelley. And when Scott left, he was head of CBC Sports and what they call CBC Revenue, which was basically the advertising department. Scott was a very powerful guy at CBC and then went over to Sportsnet.

Now, I think there was a gap there. Jeffrey didn't start the following week. I think Kirsteen Stewart was running basically English CBC. She hired Jeffrey, and I think it might have been a little later. I don't know if it was as long as a year, but there were certainly several months passed. And, yeah, along came Jeffrey, and he was going to, you know, it was his job to be part of the negotiating team.

The other guy on the team was a fellow named Neil McEnany, and he was the interim head of English, I think they call it English services at the CBC. He replaced for a time Kirsteen Stewart, who left and was at Twitter Canada for a while. And I think she just got a nice job doing something with, was it the World Economic Council in Bern, Switzerland? She's doing all right. Or somewhere, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, she's got a better job than I do. But anyway, so yeah, that Orridge and McEnany were the two guys that were representing the CBC on this deal. And potentially, it sounds like there was a bit of an arrogance, maybe almost a false sense of like, oh, we'll just keep because it's been 60 years. Yeah, I think they seem to have the idea that, well, we've been a partner with the league for 60 years, so that's going to account for something. And they seem to think it would more or less be good enough to maintain the status quo when it came to Hockey Night in Canada. And they were sadly mistaken.

And this thing we were just talking about at the All-Star game, this meeting, was an early shot across the bow because Brian Burke phoned Orridge before the meeting and said, you're in for a rough ride at this meeting because people aren't happy with Cherry because of the American players thing. And McLean, because of the pro-labor bias, they believed, this is Burke's side of it, that they felt McLean and Cherry were biased against management. And, you know, the meeting ended up being a sort of,

I wouldn't say scream fest, but Burke got up first and went up one side of the CBC execs and down the other. And then, you know, other guys in turn get up there and took their shot. So, yeah, it was quite a weekend for the CBC people. So here we are. We have CBC, the incumbent, if you will, that

sort of probably didn't see this fight coming probably, or should have seen it coming and didn't, but... Well, or should have seen it coming and didn't, but... Well, they should have been more aware. Now, the main CBC people that were at that meeting were Orridge, who had been in the job for a year, and Kirsteen Stewart, who it wasn't really her job to maintain cordial relations on a daily basis with the NHL,

although she had a fairly good working relationship with Bettman and Bill Daly and John Collins, the main guys at the NHL. But Orridge, I think, even though he'd only been in the job a year, you know, he should have been a little more aware or at least been aware enough after getting a warning. Take a couple of the Hockey Night executives with him. Because Collins told me later, he said, there was just so many things that were missed there,

including the ire and the significance of the ire, because after Burke got done ranting, I believe it was Mike Gillis, no one's quite sure, but it was one of the Vancouver Canucks governors got up and said, we agree with everything Brian Burke said. Now, anybody who knew anything about the NHL would know, holy mackerel, because those two sides hated each other. Burke had been fired by the Canucks, not by that ownership.

Sure. That ownership, his buddy Dave Nonas succeeded him because he was Burke's assistant. by that ownership, but that ownership had, you know, his buddy Dave Nonas succeeded him because he was Burke's assistant and they fired Dave Nonas and Burke always thought that Nonas had been undermined and, you know, so, and they clashed on player issues a couple of times. So there was no love lost there.

And for somebody from the Canucks to jump up and say, I agree with everything Burke says, boy, that should have set off some alarm bells with the CBC people. But it just, you know, Colin said, it just seemed to sail right over their heads. Well, it's a fascinating story because we all know CBC's got it for decades.

And then, of course, we all know here in 2018, we know Rogers ends up getting it. We know they signed this 12-year, $5.2 billion deal. But what I love about your book is when you explore the role of Bell Media. So we all talk about Rogers taking over for CBC, but Bell Media, and you'll elaborate here for us, but you mentioned, is it George Cope?

Is that how you say it? Yeah, he's the CEO of BCE, which is Bell Canada Enterprises. So he's the El Supremo of that company. In your book, you mentioned that George Cope signed off for Bell Media. I should remind people, not for Rogers. For Bell Media, George Cope signed off on a 12-year, $5.2 billion deal with the NHL. Yeah, they offered almost the same money as

Rogers ended up paying. And for quite a while, I think they, and who can blame them, they thought they had it in the bag. So elaborate on this. It's not that they were, and you know, they signed off on that kind of money, but I certainly got the impression from talking to

Bell executives that nobody was really comfortable with that kind of money, but if that's what it took, that was what they were going to do. And certainly after Rogers ended up winning the deal, the Bell guys all loved to say, oh, thank God we don't have to pay

that money out anymore. Either way, they were going to win, right? That's how it works. Make no mistake, those guys wanted that deal. So where did the 12-year $5.2 billion, where did those figures come from? Was that originally the Bell deal and then Rogers matched?

Like, how does that? No, that was originally a Bell deal. And basically, in the end, Bettman said to them, to Rogers, when he decided he liked what Rogers was telling him, and said to Nadir Muhammad, who was at that time the CEO of Rogers Communications, and Scott Moore and Keith Pelley, who were running the sports or the media side of things. He said, you give me a dollar more than Bell and you can have the deal. Well, it was at least a million dollars more. but the deal came about because originally going into this thing,

everybody thought it was just going to be a repeat of the conventional deal, which is somebody's going to own Hockey Night in Canada. People kind of thought, well, it won't be the CBC, but they'll partner with somebody. So they'll sort of keep a form of Hockey Night in Canada. And TSN will get games on Saturday nights and other nights. So they'll have that. That's a couple of packages there, Hockey Night and the TSN side of things. And then the assumption was because the NHL guys wanted to make Sunday night a thing.

They wanted another. They figured that would be another night they could exploit. And people tended to think Rogers would come in and buy a Sunday night package. Sure, sure. And it ended up occurring, but not quite the way people thought. Because at that time, that was the model. Like the NFL, for example, packaged off its games to about, what, three or four networks. Sure.

for example, packaged off its games to about, what, three or four networks. Sure. And as John Collins told me, he said that the idea was that each network would give you the maximum amount of money it could, and each network would do its best to promote your product, so you were getting, to your thinking, the maximum bang for your buck. And he said, no one had ever really thought or tried packaging everything together, all of the rights, because digital rights were now becoming a thing, and selling them to one person for a long period of time. And that sort of originated with, I think, Collins and Bettman.

Because Gary Bettman's a very thorough guy, and so leading up to these negotiations, for at least a year ahead, he and Collins and probably Bill Daley had a hand in it too. They spent time researching all of the various ways and means and what was going on in the industry and what they should be doing. And at some point, they came up with an idea. They called it the gatekeeper model, which is basically what it ended up being, where you package all of those rights, the digital rights, everything, and throw in rights that hadn't even been invented yet

and sell them off to one company. And that company then could do what it wanted with them. Was that a Bettman initiation or initiative? Well, it was never quite clear if it was Bettman or Collins, but between the two of them, you know, and I'm sure they got the idea from talking to people in the industry too. I don't think it was all done in a vacuum with these two guys sitting in the office kicking around ideas. with these two guys sitting in the office kicking around ideas.

But it was never until relatively late in the process, it never became a thing. And then suddenly it did, and suddenly you had two people bidding over it, although Bell for a while thought they had it nailed down. Which I don't think a lot of people know that. I don't think a lot of people know that Bell Media's I don't think a lot of people know that, you know, Bell Media's guy in charge, George Cope, signed off on the same deal that Rogers ended up kind of getting.

But I was going to ask you, what was I going to ask you there? Hold on. So we were talking about Bell. It'll come back to me. I had a thought. It'll come back to me. But you were going to say there? I was going to.

Oh, now I don't remember. That's funny. But so Bell Media, I, sometimes it's fun to envision this alternative universe where like Bell Media gets this deal. And then you think, okay, well,

that would probably eliminate any kind of a partnership with CBC that ends up happening with Rogers because Bell Media owns CTV. And if you, so, so in that alternative reality, you don't have, CBC essentially doesn't air anymore Hockney Canada

because CTV's got it you still TSN replaces Sportsnet obviously and I just remember my question I'll get back to it before it leaves again

because you know I don't edit these shows David so this I'm not Anna Maria Tremonte this is not which you were great

on that I was live on that show was that live it was live I think sort of like live to tape I was live in the Marit Was that live? It was live. I think sort of like live to tape. I was live in the Maritimes.

That's how it went. Was anything edited out? I don't think so. No. Oh, okay. No, I don't believe so. Because I just always assumed that they didn't do it live. I assumed, and they quickly kind of edited and packaged it up.

No, I was there at 8 o'clock in the morning, and so it went live to the Maritimes, which is an hour ahead. And so then it sort of delayed through the rest of the time. You were very good. As far as I know, there wasn't any extensive editing going on. I heard it later, and it sounded pretty much the same. Until I couldn't remember my question, we were cruising along where somebody listening was thinking,

oh, he did a good editing job on this episode. It's pretty tight there. So, David, I just remembered my question. It's a fan question because, of course, I'm a fan. I'm not in the industry. Of course, there are these regional packages, okay? We still get Leaf games on TSN. So what I don't understand is,

so it's a gatekeeper model with some exceptions because there's a pre-existence. So explain to me, like, how were the regional packages already sold at TSN and when does that run out and does that come back to Rogers? Tell me. That is a source of great confusion.

Well, just because of the way it's done, I suppose. But yeah, I mean, when they sell national rights, they're not selling all 82 games on a team schedule. What you are selling is a portion of those games plus all the playoffs, okay? And that's what you're buying.

And then they hold back about, it varies from team to team, about, it varies from team to team, um, between about 50 and, uh, say 60, 62 games. And those are considered regional games. And a team sells those games itself. Interesting. And they can, and obviously, because

there's not hundreds of television networks, you're basically selling them to the same people who are chasing the national. And they're sold at different, they're on a different cycle than the national. They're not paired to expire at the same time. Do you know when that TSN deal is?

Well, there are some, yeah. I think in the wake of Rogers selling that deal, there were some long-term regional deals signed. TSN upped with the Ottawa Senators for a huge deal. There were some long-term regional deals signed. TSN upped with the Ottawa Senators for like a huge deal. And that drove up prices everywhere. Because Eugene Melnick really needed the money. He's had some real reverses over the years.

And, you know, oh, Jesus, look at his team. But they upped for something like $400 million on a regional deal with TSN. And that really kind of bailed out the Senators. And I think it was at least 10 years. I'd, you know, have to go and look at the book. But that's longer than you'd expect. But yeah, that's how those games work.

And so if you have a regional package, you aren't getting playoff games, but you've got 60 games that you could, you show during the regular season. And this comes back to what we sort of interrupted ourselves on, um, when you were talking about if, if TSN or Bell got the deal that would let the CBC out because they have

CTV. Well, it wasn't going to work quite that way because even though Bell would own all of the games, they really didn't want, they thought that was too much hockey for Canadians. That Canadians did not have an endless appetite for hockey. So that was one consideration.

The other was that they didn't want all those games all the time on CTV. They already have an existing lineup. Mostly the big money makers, of course, are the U.S. network shows. Right. And this wasn't necessarily on Saturday nights. This is the playoffs in the spring. They did not want those U.S. shows and the few popular Canadian shows

displaced in the spring because those are their highest rated shows. Like Big Bank Theory is a moneymaker for CTV. And B, the spring is the critical ratings period for conventional television shows because I think that's, yeah, they measure the ratings then and advertising rates are set off them.

So they didn't want these shows getting preempted every night by NHL playoffs. And so their idea was, we'll be a partner with the CBC. So, you know, yeah, we'll probably show Saturday night games on TSN or something, and in the spring we'll pick and choose what playoff games we want to show, and we got the CBC to carry the bulk of the freight here.

And that's what they had in mind. And in fact, one of their guys told me that they didn't even want the regional packages if they landed that national package. Because the national package was a minimum of two, or it was three nights a week of national games. Wednesdays, as it's turned out under Rogers, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. And there are the odd games on other nights of the week, but that's generally how it goes.

And so they thought that's three nights a week of hockey is enough. And so we don't need to be showing regional games every night on top of that. And so the idea was, I don't know if they would have followed through, but as those regional deals expired, they would give them up and let, you know, Rogers take them. Not that there's any other bidders out there. And it would have been fairly cheap for Rogers too, because if you're the only bidder,

you can kind of name your price. Right. And that, but that's how, how Bell was looking at it. And they would have had a more conventional partnership with the CBC where they would have had a more conventional partnership with the CBC where they would have just basically sold the games to CBC and the CBC would have paid them something and sold their own advertising

as opposed to the deal that they wound up with with Rogers. Okay, so we're going to get to that deal. Just, yeah, fascinating. Just because as a hockey fan i never considered that you could have too much hockey but to record but you know like also tsn's got like five stations like there's five tsn's television audiences are so huge because that's what you need to attract advertisers the diehards in that group are are very small quite a small number. And I'll tell you what, when I started doing stories on the ratings for Rogers in the first couple years of the deal, when things weren't going very good,

I've got to admit, I always suspected Canadians had a sort of limited appetite for hockey, but I was actually quite surprised by some of the ratings. For games like, I remember looking at a Pittsburgh-Chicago game. And this was back when, this would have been 13-14, when both of those teams were cup contenders. Like, they were, you know, the best in each conference. That's a premier matchup. And so if you're a hockey fan, okay, it's Sid against Jonathan Taves and Patrick Kane.

And what a great game. And it's midweek. What else are you going to do? Sit at home and watch this. And they got a really lousy audience. It was like, I think it was somewhere around 500,000. And I just thought, oh, man, that's like, what gives? And I wasn't really surprised, though, that Rodgers has trouble and still does

with the ratings on Sunday night games. Because there's no Leafs. Well, that's part of it. But they would, yeah, those games generally feature the other... I can tell you, because I watch every Leaf game and I'm at a point where I'm so busy,

believe it or not, that I actually only watch Leaf games right now. Well, that goes back to the Canadians' appetite for hockey. People just tend to watch the teams they're interested in. Right. So there's not a great majority of people who, even though it's Sid versus Jonathan Taves,

they're just simply not going to watch it. And that would have been one difference if Bell had gotten the package instead of Rogers. They had told the CBC, you're going to get a version of hockey night, but you're not going to get the Leafs every Saturday night. The Leafs are going to start playing on other nights of the week so we can reap some of that benefit on our national package. And that would have been the one big difference. Oh, which we would have been outraged. I can already see it now.

The Leafs could play any night of the week they want except Monday. That's the night I play my feeble senior hockey. That's funny. So I hate Monday night games. And, you know, we don't play every Saturday because occasionally there's a Saturday with no Leaf game on.

And, you know, I always... Well, now that the league's 31 teams, it's pretty, you know, those nights where you knew the Leafs were playing at 7 o'clock on Saturday, those days are gone. But we still expect it, I have to admit. Around 6.30 on a Saturday, I start to oh, you know, when James, my

oldest, is a big Leaf fan, I was like, hey, we're going to watch this Leaf game together tonight. It's sort of like you get in that mode, and then those rare Saturdays without a Leaf game feels wrong, you know what I mean? Yeah, there was a maybe two years ago, there was a, maybe two years ago, there was a period in like January or February one year,

and this is after Rodgers got the deal, where just because of the weird way the NHL schedule falls, I think the Leafs went close to a month without being the early Saturday game on hockey night. Yeah. It was a strange run. So we've talked a lot now about CBC, of course, the incumbent, and then you have Bell Media has the deal on the table,

but Rogers ends up getting it. We know that. But what role in all of this? I'm going to bring up another company. This is in your book. Everyone should buy this book. It's got great, great detail. Quebec Corps.

What role does Quebec Corps play in this whole thing? Extremely important. The deal, both John Collins from the NHL and Keith Pelley from Rogers Media said this deal would never have gotten done if it wasn't for Quebecor. Because Quebecor ponied up what's going to end up being about $135 million a year in the final years of the deal, for the national French rights. And they promised to bid at least $60 million a year for the Montreal Canadiens' regional rights, which at the very least forced Bell into tripling the amount they paid for the Habs. So that way, that took a lot of the money that Rogers had to pay out of the deal. It was over a billion dollars. I think it was about 1.5 billion over the 12 years. And this was all thanks to a guy named Pierre Dion, who was at that time running TVA Sports,

which is Quebecor's new, it was the new French sports network that was challenging RDS, which is owned by Bell, of course. And he was quite enthusiastic about this deal and promised, with the backing of Quebecor, to put this money. And that allowed Keith Pelley to go back to Edward Rogers and Nadir Mohamed and the board

of Rogers and say, okay, on the surface, it's 5.2 billion. But with the money coming from Quebecor, it's really 3.7. And Keith loves saying that later on when any Bell guys were around. And so he was able to sell the deal to the big honchos at Rogers and get it done. Because Bell didn't really have the luxury of doing that because they owned their own French network. You know, they couldn't parcel off those rights to anybody else. And the really galling thing was that this forced them to triple what they were paying for the Canadians' regional rights. Yeah, yeah.

They had the right to match, and after some angry internal discussion, they decided to. But, you know, the NHL credited Rogers with that amount of money just because they forced that big increase out of Bell. And so they were, yeah, they were internally grateful to Quebecor. Now, Quebecor didn't do this because they're just, you know, swell people at heart. They have an ulterior motive too, which Pierre-Carl Pelledeau, which is the, you know, the sort of owner, it's a public company,

but he's the guy, his family started the company. They want an NHL team back in Quebec City. And so they're pouring, you know, that's the way you get things done in the NHL. Throw lots of money at them and sooner or later they'll let you in the club. So that's what they're doing, what the NHL guys like to say, being a good partner.

And so they're throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the NHL in the hopes that one of these years it's going to pay off. Now, to borrow a line from my favorite television show of all time, all the pieces matter. So it's just reading the book. It's fascinating how they all come together. And then all of a sudden, Quebec Corps comes into play. And yeah, like as you said, a vital cog in the wheel here that ends up, and you finally mentioned the name Nadir Mohamed. He was on his way out, right?

Yeah. And, you know, he was certainly a key part of the deal because Gary Bettman firmly believes that he and his league, mostly his league, are important enough that when big contracts are being negotiated, he should be across the table mostly his league are important enough that when big contracts are being negotiated, he should be across the table from the most important person at the company

he's negotiating with. So if it's Fox, well, Rupert Murdoch better be sitting there. I mean, he does, you know, Rupert Murdoch shows up for the NFL negotiations and that's what Gary

believed. And that was another mistake the CBC made in that Hubert Lacroix, the president of the CBC at the time, didn't take part in the negotiations. And that did not make a favorable impression on Gary or John Collins for that matter. And George Cope made the same mistake. Now he has a contentious relationship with Bettman anyway through his guise as a governor of the Toronto Maple Leafs, because Bell and Rogers own the Leafs together.

And they had clashed a couple of times, which I describe in the book, that people would probably find quite interesting. And so he and Bettman didn't have a great relationship. But the fact then that Cope decided, no, I'm not, you know, I'll let the other execs handle this. And that too didn't go over well with Gary. And in the wake of losing it, there were quite a few people at TSN that were a little resentful of Cope, you know, not getting involved to that degree. They weren't too happy with their boss about that. But Nadir Muhammad, on the other hand, was a participant from day one. Now, the person who was responsible for that was Scott Moore. And this goes back to the fact that Scott Moore was running CBC Sports for a number of years and got to know Gary Bettman quite well and had a good relationship with him.

He also had a good relationship with the Canadian team executives. But he knew how important this was that Gary had to be dealing with the most important person at the company. So he insisted right from the start when they decided finally they were going to go chase these things that Nadir Muhammad had to be part of this because that's just the way it had to be if they were going to get anywhere with Gary Bettman. Now, the funny thing was Muhammad had already announced by this point that he was stepping down. I'm not going to call it a retirement. I mean, he was going out with this

really nice golden parachute that he had negotiated before he got the deal. And that in itself was a whole different story, which I got into in some detail in the book. But if you're ever interested in that, there's a great story several years ago, which I drew on in Toronto Life about the whole Rogers family and the current generation of the Rogers family, Edward and his sisters. And it gets into some detail about Muhammad and how he left. He essentially wasn't getting along with the family. But he could have easily said, and nobody would have blamed him, that, hey, I'm in the final lap here.

I've got like four or five months left. I don't need to get involved in this stuff. But he participated, and not just to sit around and nod his head at the table. Scott said he played a great, great role in all this and made a really, really good impression on Gary, and that certainly didn't hurt in them landing the deal. So the big three that land this deal for Rogers are Keith Pelley, Scott Moore, and, of course, Nadir Mohamed.

Right. Three guys. And, of course, you're going to say, and none of them are with Rogers anymore. Well, actually, yeah, I was going to, since we mentioned Scott Moore again, I was going to first ask you if you have any idea where he's off to, like where will he surface next? No, the only, he told me that he wants to get involved in either a turnaround situation with a company or maybe a startup, a media startup.

He's decided that's sort of where his interests lie. And my only guess is he's already, he knows what it is. He may not have signed on with them, but he's going to take it easy for a while. I think he's probably in Australia right now because I've been DMing him all week. Yes. He told me I'm going to go to Australia, I think for six weeks or something with his wife. I can tell you he's back here early December

because Scott Moore will be sitting in the seat you're sitting in right now on December 7th. We're going to talk about diversity in Canadian sports media. So now he's going to become a media gadfly. Maybe that's exactly what he's going to do. He's going to be like John Shannon, go from suit to talking head. But he's moving to Thornbury, so that's a long trek, right? Oh, he wants to get closer to my favorite Pilsner beer.

Well, he says he has a – this is what he told me. He says he's coming. He's right, six weeks in Australia with his wife and very much... Oh, he's there right now, hopefully enjoying himself. And then he's going to be back in Toronto. And there's a very small window, he says, before they move to Thornbury. Yeah. But is that like year round or just for the summer?

I thought it was year round. You're right. I'm thinking like my regular poor self. I'm not thinking of... There's a snow up there. You're right. But can I tell you? You know what?

Maybe he's a skier. Because what? Thornberry's what? Very close. 10 minutes from Collingwood or something? Yes. Very close. So maybe he's a skier.

Yeah. Jeff Woods, he's been on the show a few times. He lives in Thornberry. So hello to Jeff if you're listening. Got a great voice on that guy, Jeff. That's quite a commute if you're going to be working in media in Toronto. But here's okay. Well, you haven't heard the Scott Moore episode

yet, so you don't know this. I can tell you. I asked him straight out, Scott Moore, I'll pretend you're Scott. Scott, are you going to take a job with the new Seattle NHL franchise? And he gave me, it was kind of a no comment, like a very political answer. That's an interesting

question. But he had, I'm telling you, and this is why I don't do phoners. This is why I like to look in the eyes when I ask these questions, because I can usually tell, and he was a little slippery on this, That's an interesting question. Not rich like you guys, but I would say he's going to end up working in Seattle for the NHL team. You know what? Now that you've mentioned that, and I'll pay full marks to you for asking that question, because it just occurred to me there is no way I would bet against that. You know why? Scott Moore and Tim Lewicki are very, very close friends. And guess who's sort of a big wheel in Seattle?

Before I forget, because I know he's listening right now and he's yelling at his whatever he has, his iPhone right now, that I should say, I had brunch with a gentleman named Barry Carlisle who put that bug in my ear and then I did what you did. I started connecting all the dots and that's why I asked the question on that. So thank you, Barry.

You know, that's a very interesting question. And at that level, you could commute between Seattle and... And here, it gets more interesting. So in this... Right. Yeah, sure. Because, you know, hey, well, we'll fly in. To Buddenville or whatever. Yeah, I think we're good. So, you don't know this

yet, but Jodie Vance recorded a piece for that episode of Scott Moore because Jodie Vance gives Scott great credit for her career in sports media. Yeah, Jody, well, she was at Sportsnet for a long time, right? Yeah, yeah, and she considers Scott Moore a mentor. And there was a little bit of a twinkle in

Scott's eye when he made an offside remark about working with Jody again. Jody is in Vancouver, okay? I'm telling you now, put a couple more bucks on a side note. You've nailed it all down. What can I say? What can I say?

So I know that when you do retire, if the globe needs a media guy, I can see what I can do for TMDS here. So okay, now Rogers gets the deal. 5.2 years,

no, sorry, 5.2 years, 12 years, 5.2 billion with a B. This is a big monster deal. It's all in your book. And one of the first things that kind of happens is kind of a symbolic thing,

sort of I found interesting as you wrote about it, but Rick Rogers moves into the eighth floor of the CBC building. So tell us a bit about how they get in bed together. I got to tell you, when I first heard that story from some of the CBC people, that image just stuck with me, that whole barbarians at the gate thing.

You wrote it so well because you had like long time, decades, executives or whatever at CBC moving out so Rogers could come in. It was surreal sort of, and that's a, God, that's an overused word these days. But it, you had this situation where Rogers has just soundly thumped the CBC at business. They've taken over this, basically a Canadian institution.

They've just wrenched it out of their grasp. And to compound this, to just rub salt in the wounds, they've essentially forced the CBC to accept a deal where they move into their studios, essentially forced the CBC to accept a deal where they move into their studios, they move into their offices because they didn't have the kind of space you needed in their own headquarters to run this. And you're going to give it to his rent free. And now I will say this in Scott's defense, and it's in the book, he didn't want, as a former CBC guy, these were colleagues of his, he did not want to be booting people out of their offices. And he had his eye on another floor, which had some empty space.

But, he said, Jeffrey Orridge insisted, no, you're going to come on the eighth floor and do this. Because I guess the idea was we're going to be laying off a bunch of CBC sports people anyway. This is, again, a direct consequence of losing this contract because when they lost Hockey Night in Canada, they lost half the advertising revenue for the entire network, not just sports, the entire network. So the effects were devastating. Hundreds of people lost their jobs. Programs were canceled. It was terrible. And and on top of this then you had the site of producers in sports at the cbc these are executives have been there 30 years are getting booted out of their offices and have to sit with the hoi polloi well when you wrote about this i could visualize it it's yeah salt on the wounds

it's all yeah and it's all happening in front of everybody. And, of course, in the end, the ironic note was one of the CBC people said to me, yeah, of course, there was more room later on as more of us got laid off for these guys. And it was, yeah, the whole scene was just horrible. And you'd think, you know, what's up with these CBC executives, that they would do this to their own people. And, well. So now we've talked a lot of the boardroom executive stuff.

We've covered some of that. But I want to talk about some of those faces we see on our television, okay? So some of these names you know already for many years. But one, Ron McLean. Nicest guy you're ever going to want to meet, Ron McLean. Yeah, yeah. He was removed as a host. Is that the title?

Yeah, I guess host of Hockenheim Canada. Host of Hockenheim Canada. Yeah, I mean, that wasn't a great surprise to anyone. And I think Ron, certainly from my conversations with him, Ron suspected that it was coming. But again, you know, when it actually happens, it's still a shock. And that's because Ron and Gary, as we had sort of mentioned earlier, they never got along.

And now with the $5.2 billion contract between them, there's just the NHL, Gary Bettman and John Collins and Bill Daly were going to determine they're going to put as much of their stamp on this show as they could. So you knew that Ron was doomed. But, you know, it wasn't, it didn't mean his firing.

He just got knocked over to host hometown hockey on Sunday night. As it turned out, it was a show he came to love. Because Ron, you know, Ron loved schmoozing, right? And that's essentially half that job. Well, when he came back, as you know. You schmooze with the locals when you're in whatever town you're in.

Right. And as you know, when he came back, he insisted that he keep his hosting duties. Yeah. And, you know, when he had, and he had some negotiating power then because they were in a pickle. The ratings were bad and people were complaining about George. And Strombo didn't work out, which we're going to get to. Yeah. I mean, I don't know.

I sort of wonder sometimes, and I don't know if Strombo's one of your listeners, but I don't know. He might come and do it. Well, when he finds out we're talking about hockey fight in Canada, he will not cherry pick this episode. I'm sure he thought I had it in for him, but

I wasn't particularly, I wasn't happy with everything he did. But I just kind of wondered what would have happened if Rodgers had stuck it out with him. Because it was the following year, I think, when ratings started to turn around. Because Canadian teams got better, yeah. And we see that's the other thing about all these changes. You could never be 100% certain for why this happened and why that happened. Essentially, you know, and what I'm referring to are all the complaints from the viewers in the first year and the second year. Would they have been that loud in screaming about George not being a good host and the show being too high tech?

If you had Austin Matthews. The Canadian teams, yeah. If the Canadian teams weren't so collectively awful. Yeah. It just, to me, it was like you got a group of everybody, not just, you know, one city, one team like the Leafs every year, but it was everybody in all seven teams had something to complain about. And so that just made it worse.

And, you know, the ratings were what the ratings were because of the bad teams. They wouldn't have fallen off the way they did if the teams were even, you know, just a little less awful than they were. Am I the only guy who thinks it kind of doesn't really matter who's hosting the show because you tune in for the game? For a lot of people, yeah. But as it turned out, you know, as, and this is the other thing. Rogers didn't do this just blindly, turn the show, basically they turned the show 180 degrees.

They went from this sort of, I always call it this comfortable old sweater, Canadians had had for years, to this sort of high-tech thing where you had glass floors that were painted up like rinks and guys had hockey sticks. It would look like NFL stuff. I was never keen on that whole hockey stick thing. No, they had to put the puck in the wall and then something ridiculous. Yeah, then there was the puck wall and all these fancy stats would pop up.

It looked American to me. I think it felt like an American NFL production. It was like they all sat down and said, how glitzy can we make this? And, you know, they had a new toy. They were going to play with it. And Scott later admitted, yeah, you know, it was too much change all at once. And one of the people who worked there said to me, because the ironic thing that old time CBCers pointed out was that the last couple of years the CBC had the show is that they

were under siege from complainers. Oh, Ron and Don are hokey and out of date and, you know, the show needs some zip and all this. And so Rogers was doing all these market studies and they had a team that went across the country talking to fans. And what they heard was, yeah, we want something different. So they got something different and everybody complained. So it was like one of the hockey night guys said to me, he said, people tell you they want change, but they don't really mean it. That's true. That is true. And the average viewer of hockey in Canada is a fairly conservative

person. So, you know, George was quite a change for them. And in the end, it wasn't one they wanted. Now, mind you, I don't think George helped himself because the other thing fans want, and I think you mentioned this earlier, where you seem to think they didn't care. Well, I think a lot of them do. They want a host that's invested in hockey as they are. And that's what Ron McLean is. I mean, you know, his puns may drive you up the wall, but when you're listening to him, you're listening to a guy who you know

eats, sleeps, and breathes hockey. He referees hockey. Yeah, he knows the sport and what the issues are and what's going on. Whereas George was more of like a fan who had an interest, but it wasn't, you know, all you had to do is read his Twitter feed to know that hockey was not George's passion. Music's his passion. Music and the arts are his passion. And so that didn't go over well with people, you know, and then lay on the fact that here's this middle-aged guy dressing like a 20-something hipster.

Okay. That's bound to get up a few noses. I had, what I'm trying to think is going way back, because it was episode 103. We're almost at 400 now. So way back. But I know that Strombo was still in this role at Hockey Night in Canada when he came over here and sat here. And he really was talking about the blowback

he was getting, particularly, he said, not so much from Toronto, but people in other parts of Canada saw him as like a Queen Street Toronto. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean. They didn't like the socks and his shoes.

The rest of the country hates Toronto anyway. That's what I hear. I lived out West, I can tell you. Oh, yeah. Downtown. And, you know, let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark wasn't just a bumper sticker in the 80s. Those people believed that.

McLean's a Red Deer guy. And so, you know, looking at a guy like George, who's sort of the epitome of their idea, the stereotype of this Queen Street West hipster. And the pants are tapered in ways that they don't like. And he's wearing the skinny suits. Right. That's what it is.

And I remember emailing or texting somebody one night on a Saturday when George was wearing, for him, a fairly conservative suit. And I said, geez, congratulate George for dressing like an adult tonight. Oh, that's right. I remember that. So before, okay, before Strombo is hired, I mean, I think it's public record that Scott Moore had another choice. And he wanted James Duffy. Well, they wanted James. Yeah, both he and Pelley wanted James Duffy, which was, you know, really the obvious choice because James is the best hockey

host we have in this country. I mean, he's, he's, uh, got a great sense of humor and he's quick and, uh, you know, and he knows hockey. And so that's, you know, who they went after. But James is very loyal to TSN because TSN gave him his big break and he re-upped with them. Yeah.

Which was a big ego or morale boost rather for TSN because right at the same time he re-upped with them, which was a big ego or morale boost, rather, for TSN. Because right at the same time, they re-upped Darren Dreger and Bob McKenzie and I believe Pierre Lebrun and one or two other people. And then they went and announced all that to the newsroom at TSN, an obvious case to boost everybody's spirits. And so, yeah, the people over there were feeling a lot better about themselves after that. But it's interesting of those names, the ones I've spoken to, Bob McKenzie, Darren Dreger, and James Duthie,

only one of those three gentlemen was ever approached by Rogers. Well, yeah, I mean, they hadn't gotten far along the path and you know what I've never talked to Scott about it or Keith if they had ideas of poaching Bob McKenzie Oh I did, don't worry, I did that for you buddy You gotta catch up I gotta listen to the Scott Moore episode Oh for sure I asked about that

I'll dispense with Jerry Lee Lewis as fast as I can Big thing there was they wanted somebody for the whole 12 years and they knew they weren't going to get Bob McKenzie. No, Bob is very clear that he wants to retire when he's 65, which will be in a couple more years. Yes, coming up.

I think he's a little younger than I am. And he's, you know, I've talked to him about that and he is very, very sure that's what he wants to do. He sure wasn't going to stick around 12 years. Yeah. And he said, you know, and I don't, he said at that time, he said maybe he's

changed his mind, but he didn't even think he wanted to stick around as even a once a week guy, right? He said, it's an all-consuming job, Hockey Insider. And that's another reason why Scott Moore is walking away, because these jobs are 24-7. I was going to say, because you mentioned it

and then we went past it, but Keith Pelley, Scott Moore, Nadir Mohamed, and Nadir didn't, he left pretty right away. And then Keith Pelley, he's now running golf in Europe. The European PGA Tour. Yeah, that's a great job. Oh, no, it sounds amazing. And he's a golf nut.

Yeah. Now, Keith also has a history of leaving jobs earlier than people expect. Some say getting out while the getting's good. But you've got to admit, you know what? That's a way sexier job running the European PGA Tour than being head of Rogers Media. No doubt. That sounds amazing. And now, of course, Scott Moore is no longer there, too.

So you're right. None of those three guys are left, which is kind of interesting maybe, or maybe not. Well, that's the one question everybody asked me when Scott announced he was leaving. It was like, oh yeah, is he getting pushed out?

He swears he's leaving his own. That always comes up when a high profile guy leaves. In this instance, I have no reason to not believe Scott. And what sort of clinched it for me is that they gave him a rather extended send-off.

I mean, he was on Bob McCown's show talking about his time at Rogers. Sure. He was on, I think, one or two other shows, or he may have been on Bob twice, I forget. Was he on any non, oh yeah, he did, I know he did something with Gregory Strong at the Canadian Press.

Yeah. I think he did a non-Rogers press. He had a sort of farewell tour. And media companies don't do that if they want to get rid of you. No. It's basically, here's your check. Goodbye. And that didn't happen with Scott.

So I tend to think, yeah, he's doing this. This is his idea. He's going to Seattle. Of course he has to. Yeah, I'm kind of intrigued by that idea. You get the same twinkle in your eye now. I mean, it makes perfect sense given his relationship with Tim Lewicki.

Well, time will tell. Yeah, we'll see. And then we'll start bragging about how we called it. And you know what? Lewicki's the kind of guy that, now he's, I should say, the one thing you sort of have to be a little cautious here is that Lewicki

doesn't actually own the team that's going to be in Seattle. That's two other guys, David Bonderman, who's the real money guy, the billionaire, and then the film producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, who's wanted an NHL team for years. They're the actual owners, but they're joined at the hip with Lewicki. And given that Lewicki's got all this experience running NHL teams, I'm sure he's got lots of say in what's going to happen. And he's also the kind of guy that would, you know, even though it's a local production for a local NHL team, he thinks big enough that, oh, let's go get the national guy in Canada,

you know, my buddy Scott. Oh, the pieces fit here. Yeah, the whole thing makes sense in a strange way. Yeah, for sure. Mind you, I must caution everybody, we are just speculating. Well, I saw a twinkle in an eye. Is that still speculation? The twinkle.

Yeah, well, there you go. But anyways, there is a recorded, you can hear Scott Moore being asked the question, and then you can kind of analyze his response, because I recorded that conversation. So it was super on the record, as they say, on whatever episode that was. Scott Moore episode of Toronto Mic. So Strombo, a guy I have a lot,

personally, I always like, I just like the guy. I love music myself and I just always like Strombo and I had a lot of time for him. But he came in as this young, new face of Hawking in Canada and he was in his 40s.

I just want to point out that the, I don't know. Yeah, people think, oh, they got this young punk. Well, he was 42 his 40s. I just want to point out that the, I don't know. Yeah, people think, oh, they got this young punk. Well, he was 42, 42, 43. When Ron McLean took over from Dave Hodge,

he was 27. Right. Yeah, that's a young, yes. And he, but there was outcry then too, right? Of course, there was outcry in this country then. But okay, so Strombo doesn't work out. By the way, Scott Moore on this, again, last time I referred to that episode, except I can't believe you haven't heard it. I was going to ask you what you thought.

Oh, I'm sorry. I hurt my feelings. You had to listen on the way here. Scott Moore says he wanted to get rid of Strombo after year one because they waited two years. Oh, that's possible. That's possible. Yeah, that's kind of been Scott's style

that you're his guy until you aren't suddenly. That's kind of been Scott's style that, you know, you're his guy until you aren't suddenly. And that's, yeah, that's the first I've heard of that. There had always been speculation how long George would stay there. But mainly it was because people thought, and these are people who knew him. I don't have firsthand anything from George on this, but these were George's colleagues who thought, you know, he regarded this as a, even though it was like the best job in Canadian broadcasting in many

respects, he regarded it as a sort of interim stop along the way. And his goal, a lot of these people were convinced was to have his own talk show on a U S network. One person said to me, he wants to be Jimmy Fallon. And I have no reason to disbelieve that.

I mean, he does keep a house in L.A. And he had a sort of ill-fated turn on, was it CNN with a talk show? CNN, yeah. It lasted, what, six episodes or something? Yeah. And people got him confused with George Stephanopoulos.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the people got him confused with George Stephanopoulos. Oh, yeah, yeah. But yeah, the CNN, and he did have a reality show he hosted for ABC that they pulled after one episode. That one I don't remember. Yeah, episode 103 for the, yeah,

the Strombo deep dive. So who knows? I mean, he may end up down there yet on some talk show. Who knows? He's a different Catholic. He was a, this is the thing. He was a good interviewer.

Yeah. And that was the thing. But what happened was that his lack of sort of deep knowledge in hockey would come through at times. And you sort of got the impression sometimes that something would come

out of his mouth about hockey, usually a statistic. And he just had the impression some producer has just said that this year. Oh, no, I think it's Merrick was texting him. Yeah, or something like that. By the way, Jeff Merrick, another young face of HockeyNet Canada who was also in his 40s when he took the gig.

Well, that's, yeah, we're a funny country in that regard that some people are looked as kids. But in these last few minutes here, it's, first of all, Merrick's still there, so good on him, because I really like Jeff Merrick. Well, when Darren Millard left, it sort of bumped Jeff up, which is good,

because now he's another guy that just eats, sleeps, and breathes hockey. Some of the stuff he comes out with on the air just astounds me sometimes. How did you know that? He used to do that with wrestling. Crazy thing. Now he does it for hockey.

But yeah, he's an encyclopedia of factoids and like that too. But I was going to ask you about some changes that kind of went down. So the big change, obviously, is that Strombo is removed and McLean gets the gig back. McLean has a bit of leverage, so he insists on keeping the Sunday night hometown hockey with Tara Sloan. And because of that, you need to introduce a David Amber because you need to have somebody to do late night stuff

for Ron McLean goes flies to wherever. Because of the travel, yeah. I mean, I tell you, I wouldn't want Ron McLean's schedule. But Ron loves it. Yeah, he loves it. Yeah, so that was the deal. Like, okay, well, yeah, we'll let you do it, but then there's no way you can host the second game on Saturday night.

And so, yeah, David Amber was promoted from reporter. He does a good job to host. He'd done some hosting before. David's at great risk. He's no kid. David's been around. The only kid is, I guess it's only...

I mean, I knew David when he had hair, I think. I was going to say, I don't know how old he is, but every time Kyle Bukakis is on the... Oh, God.

I always think, oh, he looks about my son's age. He makes me want to go home and lie down. That kid has... Great hair, though, right? Well, that's the thing.

Yeah. He looks like he's 12. He's sort of like a Mitch Marner. And he's got this head of impossibly great hair. And every time I see him in the Leaf Room, I just kind of go, oh, God. I've got to get him on and make him stick those headphones on. I've got to go lie down. So here's, I'm going to run down some changes, and we'll just touch on them.

Like, one of the big changes that happened at the same time that, by the way, do you think, I wanted to ask you this. Do you believe that Bettman directly played a role in the removal of McLean? And do they have to ask Bettman's permission to bring McLean back to hosting duties?

Well, let's put it this way. In these instances, it's kind of like if you're a Rogers broadcaster and you want to start ripping the NHL, you don't have to ask. You know. So there's no memo. It's all unspoken. No, there's no discussion or memo.

Certain things are just known. However, when they wanted to bring Ron back, I think, you know, I'm not sure exactly when the thinking on that started. Scott now says it was after the first year. But at some point during the playoffs of that final season for George, either Scott or I can't remember, I think Rick Brace was theace had replaced Keith Pelley by then

as president of Rogers Media one of them or both went to see Gary Bettman and asked would it be okay they probably didn't I should say they wouldn't have asked it like that it would have been something along the lines of what would you think if we brought Ron back? And what I was basically told is that, you know,

Gary's a hard-headed businessman first, and he realized they were hurting financially because of all the troubles that were going on. So he really didn't object. And then he and Ron mended fences in that famous interview at the World Cup of Hockey. Right. Yeah, it all kind of worked out. Now, around the same time when Strombo was relieved of his duties at Hockenac.

By the way, I've reached out to Strombo to come back. I have to say, I don't think he's ever talked about this. No. As far as I know, he has never, ever had any interest in discussing this. I talked to some of his now former colleagues who said the summer he got fired, he would banter a little bit by text or email, but as soon as you suggested, let's get together for a drink, no, that was radio silence. I would think this

was very hurtful for him um and he uh you know it it would probably be a long time or if at all if he ever wants to talk about it so he's not sending uh christmas cards to scott well he had trouble from the start according to the people who work with him with all the criticism and as one guy said to me he said you know the problem with george is he comes from the start, according to the people who work with him, with all the criticism. And as one guy said to me, he said, you know, the problem with George is he comes from the entertainment world where everybody kisses your ass and tells you how wonderful you are. And then he wanders into sports where it's all these nut bars on Twitter and, you know, complainers. And he's just taking this barrage of criticism every day. I mean, I can see it. It's hard not to take it personally. And I mean, any of us in sports, really,

I certainly wouldn't have taken anything on the scale that George did. But I get a lot of grief on Twitter. Sure. I'm getting grief on Twitter, okay? So I just mentioned it before. And to this audience listening, they'll be particularly interested in this December 7th roundtable, essentially.

You see I have three microphones. I own three mics. I have to find or steal or borrow or whatever. But the rate you're adding sponsors, just go buy one. I need a fourth mic because it's going to be me. I am host of this show. I hope it's okay if I moderate my own podcast

because I had a DM from a young woman who told me that I shouldn't be moderating this because I am a white male. Oh, you're a white male. Yeah. And I was like, well, it's my show. And I think when the agenda does something like this, just take and step down and say, oh, this is about LBGT rights. I will now abstain. Not that I recall. No. Anyway, so if it's okay, I'm going to be on my own podcast if it's okay. But that leaves three seats.

And I'm very pleased that Scott Moore has confirmed and agreed that he will be one of those three seats because of the position he held. That's, to me, a key voice in this discussion. A little heavy on the white male side, aren't you? That's that. Thank you. So take me out of it.

I host the show. Take me out of it. There's it. I host the show. Take me out of it. There's three guests. One third of the guests, yeah, will be a white male as Scott Moore, okay? The two thirds of the guests will not be white males. They will not be white males. So, I was getting some flack. So, I don't need to put this down on my calendar, you're telling me, right?

You don't want to miss this roundtable. I think it's an important discussion. I think the right people will be in on the discussion. Have you figured out who else you're inviting?, right? You don't want to miss this roundtable. I think it's an important discussion. I think the right people will be in on the discussion. Have you figured out who else you're inviting? That's it. Absolutely. No, I've... You're asking for suggestions.

No, I've... Well, I've got... I've already invited two people. Oh, you have? One has said yes, and the other will let me know shortly because this person wants to do it, just needs to confirm some things

because she's a new mother and stuff. with the boss. I don't even know if it's that, but it'll be a very good group for this discussion. And I was surprised at the flack I was getting on social media yesterday, tweets and DMs

about the fact that two out of the four people were white males. That's all anybody ever gets on social media is flack. I noticed that lately. I don't like it, but I'm trying to do something important here. And yes, I'm sorry Scott Moore is a white male, but he's not on this show because he's a white male. He's actually on the show because of the position he held.

Well, I can understand that. Yeah. I mean, presumably if Scott's honest, he can give you some insight on how they hire people, what the thinking is. Exactly. And why these networks, and I must admit my own industry is not real fast off the mark on this, why they are slow to hire minorities and, well, minorities of all colors, races.

Non-white guys. Whatever persuasion you can use. Non-straight white guys. That's the thing. Well, yeah. I mean, just, yeah. Anybody who doesn't look like us, yeah. It's been a long, slow slog. But two out of the three guests on this important episode, December 7th,

two out of three guests will be non-white guys? Is that how you say it? I'm trying to think what the term is. I don't want to say... Yeah, so it'll be a diverse cast and we're going to have a very good discussion. They'll both be in the sports media industry, so that's key too. So I'm going to mention that,

but I just want to throw off a few changes before I let you go. I know I almost took two hours of your time here, David, but you did get lasagna and that beer. Two hours. I was supposed to be at Leaf practice at noon. Is that right? Well, that's really close to here. The athletic has taken over my seat for sure.

It's close by. Damien Cox, he was part of the change. I think the same time as Strombo leaving. Cox, wasn't that about the same time? Well, that's when he went to Bob McCown's show. Right. Because they got rid of a whole bunch of people off the show. Damien was one of them.

But Damien was the one person who had a landing spot. Right. Because this place, the co-host job for McCown had been open for a while, and so he went back there. And another guy that got let go and didn't have a landing space, but I thought he was always very good, and I never understood why Twitter, speaking of Twitter, why did Twitter hate him so much? But Glenn Healy.

Well, of course Twitter hates him. He has an opinion, and he isn't afraid to express it. So naturally, Twitter's going to hate him so much? But Glenn Healy. Well, of course Twitter hates him. He has an opinion, and he isn't afraid to express it. So naturally, Twitter's going to hate him. I always liked the fact he had an opinion. I always liked Glenn as a broadcaster, too, because he didn't hesitate to say what was on his mind. Right, which is probably what led to his demise there.

So we miss Glenn Healy, but he's gone too. Now, more recently, Paul Romanuk, do you have any insight into... Because he did. Now, more recently, Paul Romanuk. Do you have any insight into... Because he did a conference final last year, Paul Romanuk. Yeah. My only guess, because Paul's an experienced broadcaster, is that somebody up top just didn't like his style. He's another guy Twitter doesn't like.

Is he? Really? You know what? I hadn't noticed that. I always thought Paul was... No, I liked him and you liked him probably. ...reasonably popular, yeah. No, he wasn't but yeah my that i haven't talked to paul um but my guess is like in a lot of these instances um the folks up top just didn't cotton deer style and decided

they wanted to make a change and one more final uh thing to talk about here would be bob cole because bob cole uh has been i the way i referred to it on the Scott Moore episode is that he's been retired. Yeah. You know what? Scott and I have had our troubles over the years. But in this instance, I do have a fair bit of sympathy for Scott and the Sportsnet bosses. Because I think they handled this about as well as it could be handled because what you have

is a guy like Bob Cole and God, another overused word, icon. You know, I mean, he's been around forever. But he deserves that. Yeah, no, I mean, Bob was always one of my favorite broadcasters when it came to hockey. But Bob just, he didn't want to retire.

And so Sportsnet obviously felt it was time for a change, but there was no way they could do it gracefully. And Bob wasn't going to give them that out. And so it had to be done the way it was done. And in the end, when they gave them these 10 games, I think they did this about as well as you can do it. And, you know, given that their hands were tied by Bob. My thought is, I'm agreeing with you on almost all those aspects, but I do kind of wish that

his final game that he calls was a Maple Leaf playoff game. Oh, a Leaf game? Yeah. Well, I think it will be because another twinkle in the eye. I asked Scott Moore, will it be at least make it a Leaf game, a Saturday night Leaf game

in December? And Scott, his answer, which I can't remember now, was such that I left that thinking, yep, it's going to be a Leaf game. Oh, really? Because my impression from reading this press release on it

was that all of these 10 games he was getting this season would be in the first half of the season. Yeah, it'll be a December Leaf game, like a December Leaf game. Yeah, so that's not going to be a playoff game. No, no, no, no. That's my wish. No, sorry. Confused two things there.

Sorry, I started something and then I left it. Oh, I see. Yeah, sorry. My desire would be that let him call the first round of the Leafs playoffs and then he can go. That was my desire. Yeah, I don't think he's going to last that long. He's not. He's going to, no, December.

At some point, yes, you're right. I think you broke the story. I think December will be, we'll hear Bob Cole calling a game for Hockey Night in Canada for the last time this December. Right, yeah. And so, yeah, it makes sense that he would go out on a Leafs game. I mean, that's the team he was associated with.

Thank you so much, David Schultz, for being my first guest as I introduced a couple of new sponsors. So thank you, Fast Time Watch, and thank you, of course, Palma Pasta. And thank you, David, for being here. That was amazing. You're quite welcome, sir. And I'm sorry you'll be late for the Leaf practice.

Well, all it means is I'll have to kick one of those athletic kids out of my seat again. This happens every practice. And that brings us to the end of our 393rd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. David is at D Schultz. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptors Devotee.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. And Fast Time Watch and Jewelry and Repair is at Fast Time WJR. Where's my watch? Honestly, I had a chat with the owner yesterday. We're going to think of something like that. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Stay tuned.

Thank you all. See you next week. Drink some Guinness from a tin Cause my UI check has just come in Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and green Thank you. Cause everything is rosy and green Well you've been under my skin for more than eight years